Who is the Committee for Smart Growth?

Who We Are

The Crown Hill Urban Village Committee for Smart Growth was formed in 2016 in response to the City’s plan to upzone Crown Hill Urban Village as part of the Mandatory Housing Affordability policy. The Committee includes neighborhood organizations including Crown Hill Village (formerly Crown Hill Neighbors and Crown Hill Business Association), Whittier Heights Community Council, Olympic Manor Community Council and Greenwood Community Council working with neighbor volunteers. Over 600 neighbors have joined our mailing list. We are your neighbors, not the City of Seattle.

What We Do

Our goal is to make Seattle’s growth something positive for our community. We do that through engaging our neighbors on opportunities to influence growth and change in CHUV, advocating directly with the Mayor, City Council members and City Officials, and working collaboratively with other neighborhood groups and associations to share best practices and information.

Our Key Principles

We believe successful urban growth starts with a plan. We advocate for community-specific planning and design guidelines to support smart growth in our neighborhood. A good plan will: maintain affordable housing options and minimize displacement, concentrate growth along arterials where there is the greatest capacity, ease the impacts on neighbors adjacent to arterials, and create a cohesive, true urban village.

Invest in building infrastructure to accommodate growth. Crown Hill, which will not be receiving light rail, needs significant transit investments to accommodate the additional demand, particularly to overcrowded bus service and improvements to bottleneck at the Ballard Bridge. Our community needs safe pedestrian paths on neighborhood side streets, safe routes to schools for children attending Marcus Whitman Middle School, and sidewalks added to all Greenways north of 85th. Build safe, planned pedestrian walkways over and around arterials for safe pedestrian access. Flooding Fix storm water drainage and flooding north of 85th.

Work to create vibrant commercial spaces and a true business district. Integrate planning and economic development tools to include a variety of spaces that are affordable for small local businesses and office space.